Yazidi Children Recount Horrors of ISIS Captivity

Two Yazidi boys escaped the horrors of Islamic State. Luckily, they lived to tell the world about their horrific ordeal.

As time passes, more and more horrors perpetrated by the Islamic State (ISIS) terror organization in Iraq and Syria are being exposed.

In a recent TV interview, two Yazidi boys, aged 12 and 14 years, talked about their capture by ISIS terrorists and the atrocities that they endured. They also shared how they managed to escape.

The interview, aired on Russia Today on January 20 and publicized by MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute), offers a glimpse into darkness.

The report begins with Dleir, 14, and Dlawar, 12, walking from the village of Tal Banat to Tal Qasab in order to celebrate a Yazidi holiday with their grandmother, uncle and cousins.

“The joy on their faces quickly evaporated when they were taken captive,” the report says. ISIS gunmen stormed the place and captured everybody.

According to Dleir, “they opened the doors and told us to get out. We went out with my uncle, aunt, cousins and grandmother. The ISIS gunmen were in the streets of the village. They stole our car and took us to Mosul [in Iraq] at night. There were many of them, and they had about 20 cars. For a month, we were held in a large building near Mosul Forests.”

After the first 15 days, the women and girls were separated from the boys.

After separating the men and women, they killed the men,” Dleir recalls, “Then, we were transferred to a school in Tal Afar, where they spoke to us in a Turkmen language. Ten days later, we were transferred to another place.”

Dleir and Dlawar began considering how to escape after being beaten several times. One evening, when they were both in a hospital, their arduous journey began.

“In the evening, we fled from the village of Kisr Al-Mihrab to Ein Hissan village, where we hid in a deep trench. There were more than 20 of us, all women and children. We ran out of fresh water, and the situation was bad. Some could not go on and preferred to turn themselves in. We moved on and got into one of the houses, but then we were handed back to ISIS,” Dleir explains.

Dleir and his younger brother were subjected to harsh beatings, but they never gave up their dream of escaping.

Their ordeal finally ended. “We escaped again with a group of 50 women and children,” Dleir continues. “The others were too scared. We reached the Sino area, near Mt. Sinjar. We walked a long way and then were picked up by fighters from the Peshmerga and the YPG [Yazidi and Kurd fighters].”

All populations overrun by ISIS are immediately forced to convert to Islam. If they refuse, as in the case of the Yazidis in Iraq, they are executed en masse or raped and sold into slavery.

Despite the mass persecution and slaughter of the Yazidis and Kurds by ISIS, the world has remained mostly silent.

By: Atara Beck, World Israel News